The invention relates to a method for dynamic sensor geometry by means of formation control of sensor carrying craft to achieve desired sensor geometry. The invention also relates to a system for performing the method.
Today, craft are provided with different kinds of sensor systems for data collection. Typical sensors/applications may be: multibeam echo sounders/subsea survey, sonar/fishing, sonar/mine detecting, hydrophones/maritime seismology, laser scanner/topographical survey and similar.
The craft's sensor systems will have a limited coverage. This is commonly solved by running the sensor carrier (the craft) in repetitive and partly overlapping patterns in order to be able to interpolate the measured results to a general measured result over a given area. Sensor carrying craft typically have a very high amount of daily use. To increase the efficiency of craft based data collection, there are three obvious alternatives:                1. Increase the speed of the sensor carriers, thereby covering a larger area per unit time;        2. Increase the coverage of the sensors; and        3. Increase the number of sensors.        
The speed at which the measuring can be performed (the speed of the craft) is often limited due to limitations in measuring technique (quality of measured data).
The coverage of the sensors may also be limited by the measuring technique. Often it is desirable to have a high sensor resolution, so the effective search area of the sensor must therefore be low.
Increasing the number of sensors is not without thought a possible solution, as the sensors still are dependent of being arranged to the craft, and thus will have overlapping coverage.
It is not known publications which disclose or suggest methods for achieving a desired sensor geometry by means of formation control of sensor carrying craft.